Philipp Raimund won gold on Monday in the normal hill ski jump at the Milan Cortina Winter Games
MILAN, Metropolitan City of Milan — A German ski jumper who has talked on social media about his fear of heights, after it prompted him to withdraw from a competition last year, won an Olympic gold medal on Monday.
Philipp Raimund won gold in the men’s normal hill ski jump at the Milan Cortina Winter Games. He led a group of Olympic rookies and a veteran past former medalists and world champions.
“Many of you already asked, why I’m not flying,” Raimund said on Instagram after withdrawing from an event in Slovenia last March. “So here comes the explanation. As some of you may know, I am scared of heights.”
He said at the time that he usually has the fear under control. That seemed to be the case on Monday.
“Usually the issue is that I have too much power in my legs and therefore the movement is a bit unstable,” he said on Monday. “So I knew just standing up and just let it fly.”
With a best jump of 106.5 meters and 274.1 points, Raimund beat Kacper Tomasiak of Poland, who won silver, and Ren Nikaido of Japan who tied with Gregor Deschwanden of Switzerland for the bronze in a thrilling event that came down to the last jump.
Raimund was ranked sixth in the world coming into his first Olympics. His best result was a fourth place in the world championships in the team event and only one win in the World Cup circuit for the mixed team event.
“I’ve never won a World Cup, so now I’m Olympic champion and I will be known probably for the rest of my life because I have a gold medal and that is un(expletive)believable,” he said.
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